I’ve been away for a few days, and found myself unexpectedly without reliable WiFi. I was in Brittany which, if you’ve never been, is a really beautiful part of France with great landscape, food, and drink. As a travel destination it’s great, but it’s also linguistically very interesting. Continue reading
While mentioning Luxembourg yesterday, I was struck by its name: we usually associate the suffix -bourg/burg with towns and cities, and in American English, burg is used as an informal word for town. So why would a country (albeit a tiny one) have a name like a town? I decided to investigate… Continue reading
In most Christian traditions, today is the last day of Christmas. The most common name for this day is The Epiphany (meaning a moment of sudden realisation or revelation). It’s so called because it was believed to be the day that Jesus revealed his divinity, when the three magi arrived to see him.
As well as religious celebrations, the day is marked in different ways around the world. If you’re lucky enough to be Spanish or Italian, you might get extra gifts on 5th or 6th January. Despite the various traditions throughout Continental Europe though, in the UK and Ireland, we don’t do too much to celebrate the end of Christmas, unless you count taking down the tree and decorations. For most people here, the Christmas period lasts until New Year’s Day, and then life for most people goes back to normal. At least when I was a child the school holidays didn’t end until the 6th (although that changed a few years ago) and I could still enjoy the first few days of January playing with my new toys, though there was always a creeping dread as it got closer to going-back-to-school time.
In the past though, the Epiphany was quite a big deal. Continue reading
Today is Boxing Day, traditionally a day of extreme rest for those who celebrate Christmas, due to the exhaustion caused by the previous day’s eating, drinking, and resting. Unless you’re one of those simply awful people who get up at 5am to queue for the stock that clothes shops couldn’t sell during the year, now reduced in price. Then it’s probably quite a tiring day, but that’s your fault, isn’t it? For the rest of us it’s a day for watching Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory or Raiders of the Lost Ark, and eating Quality Street and turkey & ham sandwiches. Continue reading
It might surprise some people to notice how common the surname English is in Ireland. But there is a logic to it. The surname, in a variety of forms, was actually quite common around different areas of the modern-day United Kingdom, being recorded as far back as the 12th century. With the variety of different tribes and ethnic groups in these islands, and Europe in general, the name English was given to someone to denote that they were of Anglo-Saxon origin, particularly in border regions where lots of mingling would be expected.
The more common surname Walsh has a similar history. This may be less surprising when one considers how it’s still often pronounced in the west of Ireland: Welsh. And of course there’s Scott too!
Another surname with a seemingly similar origin is Ffrench. Yes, there are two f‘s, that’s not a typo. It’s not so common, but is to be found around my hometown of Galway, being the name of one of the 14 historically powerful and wealthy families of the city, who were known as The Tribes of Galway. At first I assumed it simply meant, well, French. Given the extent to which Norman culture influenced Ireland after the invasion of 1169, it wouldn’t be surprising. That influence is still evident in many Irish names. Burke comes from the Irish De Búrca, which in turn comes from the Norman De Burgo. Any name with Fitz is of Norman origin, with the prefix meaning son of. So Fitzgerald, for example means son of Gerald. And yet, while Ffrench is French in origin, it doesn’t actually mean French. It comes from the old Norman Irish name Defraine, which has been anglicised in many forms such as Frayne, Freyne, Freeney, French, and Ffrench. Defraine originally comes from the French word Frêne, meaning place with ash trees.
I love how surnames developed simply as a means to give us information about someone, like what their job was or where they were from. In your country and language, do people have surnames which come from nearby nationalities?
In honour of the European Championships being held in France, and specifically the Ireland vs France second-round match this afternoon, I want to look a little bit at the influence of the French language on English. A whole history of this would be exhaustive and exhausting, as there has been a lot of exchange between the languages over the centuries. After the Norman conquest of Britain in 1066, French became the language of the royal court and politics, and remained so for about 300 years, so it’s not surprising that a lot of French words entered the English language.
I’m more interested in words that we’ve taken directly from French, and what they say about our attitudes towards the language as well as French people. The long, long history of antagonism and outright war between England and France in the last couple of millennia has, I think, led to some conflicting feelings about French evident in the way that English uses some of its words. We’ve always had conflicting stereotypes about the French: romantic, sophisticated, with great food and drink, but also rude and arrogant (I’ll just restate that these are stereotypes and not my opinions).
And so we tend to feel that the French language sounds beautiful, elegant and sophisticated, and the areas in which we most commonly use French words reveal a lot about our positive stereotypes about the French. Continue reading
English-Language Thoughts 